Theology, Life, Opinion

I was away for a few days this week and except for an occasional look at the front page of USA Today have been out of touch. It has been tragic watching the oil spill in the Gulf Of Mexico. I’ve been thinking about how Christians should respond to this crisis.

The Bible in Genesis gave humans dominion over God’s Creation, the Earth. Like any other charge that God has given humans, dominion comes with certain caveats and restrictions. Our resources are not limitless. We know that whatever resources can be used up if they are not replenished or replaced in some way. The idea that dominion equals absolute rule without consequences defies everything that is taught in the Bible. It really flies in the face of who God is and how He operates.

Since we haven’t developed other renewable sources of energy, we still have to depend on oil. The consequences have been immense:

From a national point of view:

We are dependent on foreign governments for a good chunk of our power. This makes us vulnerable to price gouging and supply issues.

In order to keep our oil habit going we need to drill in places where the environment can be damaged leading to…

Other industries (therefore jobs and livelihoods) are damaged causing unemployment and loss of income.

Damage done to the coastline may be irreparable.

From a Christian point of view:

We are gluttons for energy (and other resources as well) causing people in other countries to pay more for their resources.

We have failed to be good stewards of the resources that God has given us. For all of the ranting about American Exceptionalism we are abysmal at stewardship and for that matter, leadership in the handling of resources.

Hopefully, this incident will force us to look at how we have failed to steward our resources.